All too often, sporting autobiographies fall into one of two categories. There is the has-been's confessional, in which a sporting star laments his or her career arc, and there is the hot young property's story-so-far, where a ghostwriter ekes out some dullard's patchy memories into a Christmas stocking filler. Cyclist Bradley Wiggins is an exception. This 27-year-old is hardly washed up, having just won two golds at the Beijing Olympics. Nor, however, is his life story one long training session. His autobiography, serialised in our sports section this week, details not only this summer's triumph but low points too. What was it like to take three medals at Athens in 2004? "An anticlimax after the initial back-slapping" - one he filled with a nine-month drinking binge. He turned up hungover for dinner with Princess Anne (the night before was spent "throwing up on Hampstead Heath"), drunk for club functions, and distinctly groggy for a recording of A Question of Sport. He kicked the booze, but there is no happy ending to his relationship with his father. Garry Wiggins was also a respected cyclist, but what Bradley remembers him for is his drinking, his "mad rages" and his running out on the family. This story is told not mawkishly but with a medicinal honesty. After Athens Bradley waited for the "opportunities to earn real cash and secure my family future. They just didn't come." A sportsman with a troubled past yet a glittering prime, Bradley Wiggins should no longer be underappreciated.